kind
prince, her best friend. To him she owed her engagement at the
Opera-house in Paris, the wreaths that were thrown to her on her first
appearance, the carriage she drove in every day. All was due to the
paternal interest of Prince Theobald, who, from the day he called her
his daughter, had never ceased to care for her as his child.

CHAPTER XXVI

DIES IRAE

One gloomy day in late autumn Ivan went from the forge to his mine,
and upon the way his thoughts ran in a sad groove. "What a curious
world we live in; everything goes wrong--at least, for most people.
Bread is not for the wise man, nor success for the strong; it was so
in the days of Solomon. One bad year follows the other, for even
nature acts like a step-mother to men. The poor are hungry and beg for
bread, and when they have eaten they forget from whom they received
nourishment. All the great proprietors go to their graves without
doing, either for their country or their neighbor, anything worth
mentioning; all the burden of the present and the future seems to fall
upon the less numerous and more exhausted class. The patriots are all
hollow; they weep when they are in their cups; they show their fists,
but no one dares to strike a blow. All manly strength is gone; there
is not a man worth the name in the whole country. And the women--they
are all the same, from the high-born dame to the peasant girl--false
and heartless. Even in the bowels of the earth it is no better. For
the last two days there has been choke-damp in the mine; the escape of
gas has been so great that the men cannot work; it is as likely as not
that there will be an explosion while I am in the pit."

You see, Ivan's thoughts were as black as the landscape, and suited
to its gloom. His road from the forge to the mine led him past the
workmen's houses, and as he passed one of these a miner came stumbling
out of the door. The house was a wine-shop. The miner had his back
towards Ivan, who did not recognize him, but he noticed that the man
had great difficulty in walking straight.

"I wonder who it is that has got drunk so early in the day?" thought
Ivan, and hastened after the man to find out who he was. When he got
up with him he saw, to his surprise, that it was Peter Saffran. This
struck Ivan unpleasantly; he recalled how, on the day when Evila had
eloped, Saffran had sworn never again to touch brandy; he knew also
that Peter had kept this oath. He recollected also, but imperf